Elon Musk at the FT’s Future of the Car

Prototypes are easy

After recounting the ‘world of hurt’ of the first 10 years of Tesla and the difficulty of scaling up, he summed-up with ‘Prototypes are easy, production is hard’.

Impressed by VW

After being asked which EV startup he was most impressed by, he said VW were doing well – ‘they’re kind of an EV starter up’. He also expects strong challengers from China. ‘The Chinese are working really hard – they‘re burning the 3am oil, while Americans are trying not to go to work’.

Opening-up Tesla’s supercharger network

Tesa has opened up its supercharger network in Europe, and although it’s more difficult in US due to different connectors, he’s trying to ‘do the right thing’ by making them available to non-Tesla drivers – ‘even if it weakens one of our key competitive advantages’.

Roads creating traffic is the single dumbest idea

When asked if digging more tunnels would create more traffic, he scoffed that ‘The notion of “induced demand” is the single dumbest concept in the world. By this logic removing roads would improve traffic?’

People don’t know when AutoPilot saved their life

He was equally defiant when asked about deaths related to Tesla’s driver-assist system. ‘The people whose lives were saved by AutoPilot don’t know their lives were saved’. Implying that AutoPilot saves more lives than any deaths it’s responsible for, he concluded ‘We are going to take the heat and continue to do the right thing.’

Scooters are deadly

When asked if Tesla would ever do Micromobility, he shot back that ‘Scooters are very dangerous, I would not recommend anyone ride a scooter’.

VTOLs are not the answer either

While liking the idea of VTOLs (sometimes called Flying cars) in principle, he sees too many problems. They make a lot of noise and the wind force in the vicinity is high – ‘people want don’t want a swarm of giant bees’. Weather dependency is also high… and then there’s the problem of things falling on people’s heads!.’

Hydrogen is dumb

Hydrogen does not have a role to play in decarbonising the economy. The battery maker was certain that ‘It’s a bad choice’. ‘Hydrogen is abundant in the universe, but not here on earth.’ The efficiency of Hydrolysis (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen) is low. Its low density requires that it’s stored under pressure at very low temperatures. It’s ‘the most dumb thing for energy storage’.

Super-Capacitors are also not the answer

When asked if Super-Capacitors might be the long-term better solution than chemical batteries, he made clear that he’d spent few years researching ‘SuperCaps’ for a PhD at Stamford. His conclusion was that new physics is required to crack the problem – ‘and anyway Capacitors are not needed for the electrification of the industry!’.

Long story short, he was good value and he thinks lots of things are dumb.